It is known to use JAVA® home network applications for controlling home network devices. To do this, usually a JAVA® home network interface as a functionality module is used which provides the necessary home network device controlling functionality to the JAVA® application. The HAVi (home audio/visual initiative) specification, for example, defines a JAVA® architecture as a JAVA® home network interface for controlling home network devices which provides many features that are common to computer system networks for home networks. An example for the use of such a HAVi architecture is disclosed in document EP 0 929 170 A2, for example.
However, the HAVi architecture provides a very complex software home network interface which therefore needs a lot of computational resources. JAVA® applications which use the HAVi architecture, but only need a little part of the functionality provided by it, have the problem of “carrying” a large “functionality overhead”.